I have only twice travelled in a cable car – both in the same part of the world.  I once took a cable car ride around the harbour at Barcelona, advertised, temptingly, as hanging between sky and sea, which at least is accurate though not necessarily comforting for one who prefers to have his feet firmly planted on the ground.  It was actually quite breathtaking and despite my inner fears, I enjoyed it.

Perhaps it was this experience that led to my second – a cable car ride to the Monastery at Montserrat a few miles from Barcelona.  Seeing the cable stretch between the departure point and the mountain some distance and a lot of height away, and the little car hanging on to what seemed like a thin bit of wire did very little to quell my apprehension, but it was the only way to visit the monastery.  The journey up wasn’t too bad.  The secret is not to look down so I kept my eyes fixed on the monastery ahead.  As it came nearer and nearer, the thrill of visiting such a remote religious place took over.

The real trouble was when I returned the other way.  From the solid rock of the mountain we were suddenly thrust into open space and as the car plunged and bobbed dramatically, so my anxiety increased.  It all felt very risky and a bit frightening.

Reflecting on it as I considered today’s two readings – The Call of Samuel and the Call of Nathaniel, I thought that the easier journey was that up the mountain as I moved towards the Church.  The more difficult journey was being launched from the Church into the unknown.  Though the Call of Samuel and Nathaniel are very different, both of them are called by God into  faith and both are then sent out by faith into the unknown.

Samuel’s call was a very direct one. It came through the voice of God speaking to him whilst he was in the Temple.  Samuel, as we may remember had a miraculous birth to a woman, Hannah, who had been declared to be barren.  When, despite the odds, she became pregnant after fervent prayer to God, she knew her child had been given to her for a special purpose and so she dedicated him to the Lord. She gave him into the care of Eli the Temple priest for God to use as he willed.

When the Lord spoke to him as he lay awaiting sleep he did not recognize God’s voice and thought that Eli was calling him.  At that time in Israel, things had got into a sorry state and as our reading began The word of the Lord was very rare in those days.  The nation had lost its spiritual way and Eli was not a very good spiritual leader.  His sons are described as scoundrels  who had no regard for the Lord.  They ran quite a lucrative criminal business ripping off the pilgrims to the Temple and Eli turned a blind eye to what they were up to.  God’s voice wasn’t silent but got crowded out by more worldly concerns.  Eventually, after three false starts Eli realized that the voice Samuel was hearing was God’s – a voice Eli had not heard for many a long year.

Nathaniel’s Call, on the other hand, was not a direct call from God but came through another.  Philip had responded to Jesus’s invitation to follow him and was so excited by being with Jesus that he quickly rushed off to drag in his friend Nathaniel.  Though Nathaniel’s immediate response wasn’t promising and a bit scornful, he went along, met Jesus, and had a soul -expanding moment, which led him to acclaim Jesus as God’s Son,

Samuel and Nathaniel are examples of two of the ways God calls people to dedicate their lives to him – ways in which we might respond to God’s call.  The first is the direct way – God’s voice speaks to an individual which, whilst apparently rare on Samuel’s day, is still one of the ways God reaches out to us.  My own call to take God seriously came in just such a way.  Nathaniel’s call comes through another who having met Jesus, was excited by him, and couldn’t help but share it with his dearest friend. Philip wanted others to have a life-changing experience too.  This is the missionary way – where faith is witnessed to and others are drawn by it to God.   Both these calls are common factors in Christian Vocation though there are also other ways too such as what I call the drip, drip way – when God slowly reveals his purpose to people through a series of encounters – through life’s experience, the example of others, the words of the bible and Christian books, worship in church, regular and attentive prayer and so on.  This can lead to what Bishop Ian Ramsey called a penny-dropping moment when everything that has gone before suddenly makes sense and you realize that God really does matter and he has a purpose for you.  Another way God calls is through a moment of crisis – an illness, a bereavement, a redundancy or some event which calls into question the values we have been living by and which are suddenly meaningless.  There is, we realize, something more to life which only God can fulfil.  All these calls by God are a bit like taking a cable car ride to a place we call the church – that community of believers whom Jesus has called together and for whom life has a very sharp and defined reason – of being held in God’s love in order to share his life and through that sharing discover the meaning of our own.

Samuel and Nathaniel were both drawn into God’s life and their own lives were thus dramatically changed.  In itself that may be all there is to it – personal salvation and a recognition that we are, through God’s action, on the way to becoming the person he longs us to be.  That is the Unique vocation we all must fulfil as we live our lives acted upon by God’s grace.

As human beings we are often more potential than actual.  We are all a work in progress as we allow God to change us and make us more like his image – an image we see most clearly in Jesus Christ.  In the words of a Communion Hymn we sometimes sing this process is advancing from glory to glory –from strength unto strength as we go forward on Sion’s highway so that we can appear before God and recognize within ourselves something of God’s beauty, glory and loving presence.  This process of responding to God’s personal call to become more gloriously ourselves as God has made us is dramatically illustrated in one of the sayings from the Desert spiritual tradition.

One day, Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, 'Abba, as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?' then the old man stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, 'If you will, you can become all flame.'"

We have to go beyond the mechanics of religious observance and allow God to take us over completely.  If you let God do it, you can become all flame which is way of saying – all love - On fire with God’s love in your heart.  This is vital for your personal salvation.  But Flames are meant warm others – they are flickering beacons which draw others to the love which has ignited and kept them burning.  There is more to God’s call than simply personal salvation.  Whilst  Samuel and Nathaniel were called to personal salvation they were, more importantly called to share in God’s call to others.

Samuel was, of course, destined to have one of the most important roles in the history of God’s people in the Old Testament.  As prophet and kingmaker he first consecrated Saul and then, much more significantly, the shepherd boy, David.  Thus Samuel’s service to God was bound up with the Salvation of God’s people begun in David and completed in Jesus.  Nathaniel, though we know little of his personal deeds, was one of our Lord’s disciples who together were called to be with Jesus in his earthly ministry and to continue that ministry in our Lord’s name and power after the Resurrection.  Both were sent out in God’s service to advance his purpose of saving humanity through sacrificial love which is fulfilled in Jesus Christ – one in preparation for Him and the other in witnessing to His continuing mission to claim all hearts.

But what of our call?  Certainly we are called to be the Church and in various ways we have been drawn up the mountain to the Monastery of the Spirit where we gather as Christ’s chosen and faithful people.  Here we are!  But there is more to it for us as well.

We have to get back into that cable car and launch out into the unknown.  We are called to follow Jesus who never stays still. We are called to play our part in the building up of God’s kingdom and that’s exciting because we are involved in the mission of Christ to gather into his gospel net of love all those we meet and with whom we share our lives in the wider community of Epping.  This demands of us certain things. 

Here are some words I read by Dr Ellen Clark-King in a sermon she preached in Vancouver:

Following Jesus means choosing to live life as he did: taking risks, making ourselves vulnerable, sacrificing a little of that security which is so precious to us. It means doing things we never knew we could, making the crucial decision to opt-in rather than opt-out.

It struck me that this is precisely what is at the heart of our Faith & Skills Audit and at the heart of our self offering service – whether it is what we are already doing or what we are offering to do – because it’s all about discovering what God is calling us to do and be as his faith-community here at St. John’s.

Where we are to go; what we are to do; how we can serve God better; what He is leading us to become; How we are to share the Good News of Christ in more convincing ways; what new energy we need; what new things we need to embrace; what old things we are to ditch; what sort of Church is God trying to build with the raw materials of our lives – these are all questions which belong to the unknown – these are part of the greater things Jesus promised to Nathaniel.  But we can’t even begin to tackle them, experience them or be part of them unless with, Samuel, we say to God from our hearts: Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.